"Merkel now needs to get on the phone and kick some EC arse."

Eh? Have you actually listened to what she said? She just gave the UK prime minister a 30days ultimatum to back down or face the music.
Boris making fun of some of her domestic policy difficulties was not exactly a smart move either. To neutral observers today looked like an unmitigated disaster.

"You really couldn't make it up."

That's obviously not true, they are in fact making it up. It's just that there is no requirement for lies and fantasies to be either internally coherent of mutually compatible.

Indeed, Conservativehome is now living in a parallel universe where unprecedented economic harm was always part of the deal and is an acceptable price to pay. It is telling that there has been no mention of the DeXEU impact assessments now they have finally been released. Maybe because it predicts a no deal will cost £250bn in lost GDP and nearly 3m jobs? Good luck to Esther facing the electorate with that as a track record.

"I recommend you consult an optician."

That's silly, it's quite clear that parts of the Leave has hardened, getting more extreme as they either get trapped in their own rhetoric or shift their position to avoid the cognitive dissonance of admitting they were wrong.

However, it has also shrunk, which is the more salient point.

Of course, the converse is also true, Remain attitudes have also hardened, and that is a growing group.

The EU is not "unwilling" to give assurances to UK immigrants to EU countries. It UNABLE to do so, memberstate rules for 3rd country immigration is not an EU remit. Once we leave the EU can no more provide rights for UK citizens in Spain, for example, than it currently does for Indian immigrants to the UK. Both are entirely national affairs.

??? Where have I proposed scrapping the state pension?

However, if you want to talk about taxes, Brexit has already meant the UK economy is ca £80bn PA smaller than it would otherwise have been, that's £25bn+ a year in lost taxes. It's going to be a lot more by the time this sorry mess is over (an aside, the governments estimate of the additional cost to UK businesses of handling Customs declarations is £13bn a year, i.e. more than a bn a month! That's not counting what it will cost the state to administrate it).

Paying a billion a month to avoid all that is a bargain, but of course that is only necessary because we're leaving the club. Up to now we've been getting a large proportion of it back in EU spending, so net spend has been a lot less than a billion a month. That will now stop, so we will pay more for less. Perhaps you can explain how that makes sense.

While you're at it, can you also explain the benefits to the UK of forcing the EMA and EBA to relocate away from the UK?

The damage Brexit is doing is real, substantial and permanent. The longer it goes on the worse it will get.

"No deal is better than a bad deal"

Lesson1: Don't say things which are total nonsense, people might believe you and then be unhappy when they discover it is not true.

"We will leave the EU and the Customs Union and the Single Market"

Lesson2: Don't promise what cannot be delivered, for the same reason as lesson 1.

The Lancaster House speech will go down in history as probably the most stupid ever delivered by a UK prime minister.

"So Remainers can't construct any reasonable arguments AGAINST Brexit or FOR the EU?"

Well, finding arguments against Brexit is not hard.

1) It has already cost the UK economy £80bn in lost growth, assuming average rate that's £25bn+ in lost annual tax revenue, or to put it in leaver speak £500m a week. This is a drop in the ocean in comparison to the future losses after we leave.

2) The European Medicines Agency is now in Amsterdam and the European Banking Authority in Paris, not London.

3) Brexit represents the biggest reduction in the rights of British citizens in modern times. Losing the right to live and work in 27 other countries.

5) The UK will no longer have any influence or say in the future direction of European policies, we will be reduced to be a rule taker rather than have a (historically very influential) seat at the table.

6) UK trade relationships with all our most important partners is in complete chaos, and to resolve it will involve serious concessions with detrimental effects on the UKs competitiveness.

7) The domestic agenda has effectively been on hold for 3 years and will continue to be so for at least as long again, so nothing is being done to fix a number of increasingly serious issues. Brexit is a massive waste of time and resources.

That's for starters not to mention the social and political divisions it has created, or the constitutional problems for Northern Ireland and Scotland, Brexit has seriouly endangered the future existence of the UK in it's present form.

Now, perhaps you can give me a list of promises the leave campaigns made which have turned out to be true. I know they promised blue passports, and that will happen, can you name anything else?

The number of things promised which were not true is far too long to list here, so just concentrate on those that were true. In particular, can you name anything Daniel Hannan promised in 2016 which has turned out the be true.

Can you provide some specific examples of movement towards closer union and a European superstate which the commission has proposed and has received support from memberstates?

I'm not aware of any, so unless you can provide some I will conclude that you don't know what you're talking about.

Given that 26 out of 27 memberstate governments are against any further integration at this stage that is total nonsense, unless you think the EU is entirely run by Belgium. The ignorance on these pages is staggering.